I have no network experience, and I also think as long as there are only trusted users in the LAN it is fine. To see the VM from "outside, like www" I think it have to be routed somehow (I really know nothing about networks).

The problem could be, if you log in to the Sage Notebook you have a full programming environment, running currently as root, so you could (maybe?) do all sort of stuff there. I know there is the possibility to run applications in puppy as different user (like kirk does in Fatdog, browser runs as user spot).
This could be a possibility to restrict damage, but currently I just have a vague idea about all possible implications!

So thanks for kind feedback - another question. You are running qemu with kvm - how is the speed compared to vmware or Virtual box?

Thanks for the startup-command for quemu - this line definitly qualifies for higher arcane commandline magic!

Hi Aitch,
this is a Sage package compiled in November. It was compiled at 5.11. For other puppies: Sage is usually compiled from source. One needs the devx and gfortran installed.
I am sorry to say that, but given the fast release cycle of sage and the multitude of different puppies, it I find it next to impossible to support up-to-date packages for a broader range of puppies.

In the meantime there is already a new release (4.6.1). For 511 users, who dont need developement capabilities I recommend the "sagelithe" package which is only 218 MB (unofficial).

That's funny - and probably confirms the mathematics stereotype to the rest of the world!

Now where does engineering appear on this scale?

You update SageLive when you are able - less frequent updates can be an advantage sometimes!

I was playing with the Knoppix 6.5 DVD yesterday and noticed a maths package in the education section of the disk. I would tell you what it was called if I was on my own machine now! It was a gui based package which I quickly got to do a simple indefinite integration (x^3). Trying to find the name of the package just now I find there is a www.knoppix-math.org website that maybe relates to a Knoppix disk for mathematicians. Don't know cos my work's internet policy will not let me see the website! Lookin at the Google cache shows me it is mainly a Japanese project although an English version has recently been released.

There was a Knopix spinoff called Quantian on DVD. The programs are a bit dated now but if nothing else it is useful for finding a huge number of math. and technical apps. Some later versions of Knoppix included many of these but then Knoppix went on a diet to get back on a CD.

ZMAP looks like a good Linux alternative to MS-dependent Earthquake3D, but I could not find any reference to it on the SAGE page - so I don't know if it or any other MATLAB-dependent apps will work with SAGE.

Has there been a discussion as to why Sage was chosen over Octave 3.3?

Well Sage is actually a wrapper for about 100 programs which is why it is so humongous. You can find the contents at
http://www.sagemath.org/links-components.html

So maybe the question is why Sage did not use Octave for its linear algebra functionality. In general, Octave would not be competitive with Sage as it has much more limited functionality. If you want to do a LOT of the things Sage does it is worth the disk space and the integration is a feature. If you only want to run Matlab code you could install Octave in a lot less space and you might find the Sage interface gets in your way.

Please report if there are problems. If there are no serious bugs I
will ask Harald Schilly to update the download servers in a few days
with the new version.

I will also make an exe installer, because the bug with installation
in 64 bit Windows should be solved.

I decided to stick with shinobars 511 base. There are many nice features included (boot to desktop, enhanced foreign language support, PupSaveConfig, Firstrun, swaptool). Beside the new sage package I just added the awesome sfs_load "on the the fly" - and some nice wallpapers.

I had also a look at the wary quickset edition as base. Pro was its a longterm support, con was the larger package base for ubuntu and the amount of work I had already put into it.

New slacko would also be nice, but boot to desktop is a strong argument.

The sage included is a complete "distro build", I have a rough build script

Code:

#!/bin/sh
# script to build sage,

# preparations
# be sure that Tcltk is installed (needed for R plotting)
# also install a Latex package (sage needs "Latex", so make a symlink from "latex")
# To compile you need to download the devx sfs Package for sagelive
# defaultbrowser http://boxen.math.washington.edu/home/emil/doc/html/en/ADD_SOFTWARE_devx.htm &
# Also a fortran compiler is needed (check with gfortran)

Ok now about the real beef:
I worked on the small version with the goal to create a small preconfigured multiuser sage server running as a restricted user. I also removed some of the applications from the stock puppy. I got the smallest Sage Live CD iso until now (392 MB):

As you can see above, I invested the time for some eye candy (wallpaper, special GTK theme).
So this is beta because of the reduced sage (maybe some part of it is broken and I am still not aware of it) and of the new server functionality ( I am really no network pro). But it should be nice for demo purposes, or a quick class (introduction), because you can put in the live cd/usb and then have access to the server with all the other machines of the network (notebook interface in the browser).

For longer use it might be a good idea to shift the /home folder (which has all the sage notebook user data) on a physical drive (like /mnt/home) and symlink it to /home.

I also made a special built virtual Image (tested in virtualbox). This is a full install preconfigured with 500 MB RAM and "bridged network settings". This is especially suitable if you want to use it on a windows machine, but it should also be an option for sysadmins to have an easy and secure (sandboxed) way to install a sage server on their network. For full use it will be necessary to increase the allocated ram of the vm, maximum disk size is 20 GB, this should do for a while.

Some technical details:
I kept the base 511 - I guess I leave this stable for another year.
You can use all software packages for Lupu 511. maybe install octave and have also a usable octave server in the network?
This uses my cutdown Sage 4.6 package from spring - If you need the latest Sage (4.7.2) this is not for you. Also if you need cython code or want to do developement this will not work.
Restricted users: I needed to make busybox suid, made /dev/null globaly writeable (some other file in /dev/ too, but I forgot the name) to have the restricted user work properly. I also found that sfs load on the fly doesn't work properly with multiusers (I had a version where I had a separate sage sfs package), but if you load the sfs with the Bootmanager it is working fine.
I didn't manage to install the VirtualBox guest additions properly, so don't know if anybody managed that in 511?

I would very much appreciate any feedback about the functionality of the small sage package and also if the "easy setup server" is working as expected.

I am using a 700Mb SAGELive ISO dated 31 October -- not sure if that is creation date or download date. Numbers are 511-47. I noted some minor problems with Emacs. It is in the menu system but nothing happens if I select that menu option. At the CLI, typing "emacs" seems to run MicroEmacs. So I installed the PET for real Emacs and had to fiddle around to get that to run instead of MicroEmacs when I type emacs at the CLI. (Real Emacs also creates a menu entry but it too fails to launch anything.) Real Emacs tries to start but then complains about a mssing dependency - libjpeg.so.8 which is not available in the Puppy Package Manager. (Not sure why a plain text editor needs a graphics library to run.)

Even more minor I found the grey background in the terminal made text hard to read. I spend LOTS of time in a terminal connected to a UNIX machine in another country. My fix was to install ROXterm which I recommend for this distro which makes heavy use of CLI programs. It also lets you cut and paste in the terminal window.

I remastered this with all the options installed and it's about 1Gb. I will continue to play with it. An interesting competitor is Poseidon which looks very nice but the translation into English is only at the top level. Get below the surface and English is gone!-( For example, the package names are in English but not the descriptions! Likewise the boot options.

I also have ye olde Quantian and a couple Puplets I made myself. I think what kills these is that they get half done and people run out of steam and the project dies. I have some TIME available to help thoguh my expertise is more toward the math. apps. and writing documentation than computer stuff per se. (I don't think I've compiled a program since 1973.)

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